By Greg Grisolano

ggrisolano@joplinglobe.com

U.S. Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Missouri, said the new $290 billion federal farm bill would provide a substantial increase to food-pantry budgets.

Blunt spoke Friday at a press conference at the Crosslines Food Pantry in Joplin.

“There are big increases in this farm bill for food banks, and food banks are one of the most cost-effective assistance delivery organizations that there is.”

Blunt said the bill would provide an increase of 65 percent to operating budgets for food pantries and food banks. He said the previous farm bill actually reduced federal assistance to those organizations.

“We’re seeing a farm bill that helps farmers in that (food banks) become another source for them to sell their product,” he said. “Agriculture is very dependent upon things that are outside the farmer’s control. One thing the farmers can now plan on is the farm bill itself.”

The extra funding has Crosslines’ executives excited.

“Our churches are struggling right now with contributions, just because of the economy,” said Kathy Lewis, the organization’s executive director. “When they struggle, we struggle. We’re very excited.”

Lewis said Crosslines networks with more than 60 churches in the Joplin area to provide clothing, food and utility payment assistance to needy families. The organization has been around for 26 years and provides food to about 500 families per month.

Another provision of the federal bill that came out of Blunt’s office would impact about 31 small-scale Missouri meat processors who are barred from selling meat out of state because they are inspected by state, not federal, health inspectors.

The Cloud Processing Amendment, named for Cloud’s Meat Processing in Carthage, repeals a ban that prohibits state-inspected plants from selling their products outside of Missouri.

“When you had 30 countries that are able to send meat products into this country because they had a national inspection process in their country, it was crazy for businesses like Cloud’s not to have access to that market,” Blunt said.

Andy Cloud, with Cloud’s Meat Processing, said the change would allow him to reach customers in Southeast Kansas and Northeast Oklahoma.

“It just gives us so many more opportunities for our individual business,” he said. “We have customers that come from approximately a 100-mile radius, and whenever we can’t sell to Kansas, Arkansas and Oklahoma, and we’re this far in the corner of Southwest Missouri, that’s almost 75 percent of our possible market.”